


I Found Myself A Brother

by BrokenHazelEyes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, captain america winter soldier
Genre: ALL THE FLUFF, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Character Death Fix, Cuddling & Snuggling, FIx It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluffly Blankets and Feels, M/M, Misunderstandings, Poisoning, Riley Feels, Riley Lives, Weak Mentions of Ultron
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 01:24:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1532504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrokenHazelEyes/pseuds/BrokenHazelEyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My comrades and I,” the H.Y.D.R.A agent explained, and Steve’s mind flashed back to the men he’d found the agent with, a mix of genders that had gone down all the same, “were tracking down the body, have been for nearly a week. That arm, we made sure that it gave us control. A kill switch, very helpful as you can imagine. There’s enough poison in that arm to take down an elephant. It’s been slowly bleeding into him since the asset went rouge. The Soldier’s dead by now, probably just curled up somewhere and didn’t wake up—”</p><p>Miles away, Bucky woke up to the feeling of warmth and softness, the bed under him old but still springy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Found Myself A Brother

The Winter Soldier always had knowledge that there was information that he had long ago lost, names and faces burned away over time. So when Steve fell, eyes closed and full of an accepted fate, the walls that had been in the Soldier’s mind started to peel away like old paint. All he could see was his own body heading for the rocky waves of the bay, and all he could hear was his own shout morph into Steve’s frantic cry. Time was spinning on its axis, and the Soldier was getting left behind.  
Without thought for safety, Bucky pried his hand off the metal beam and followed Steve’s crash course for the water. The Winter Soldier was still reeling from the onslaught of faces and blood and screaming. It was like DNA falling apart, the double spiral breaking away and splitting in two to try and rebuild but it would always be the same code, _the same mistakes_. You couldn’t fix those flaws.  
Steve’s skinny body glowed behind his broken eyes, the connotations of love and protect connected to the image so strongly that his mind clung to it like a gospel. He saw cold nights and felt his heart clench tight as small breaths ceased and—  
Bucky slammed into the cold water.  
The waves were rocking the soldier’s body, and the water was murky but he still saw the glow of Steve’s skin. The metal arm helped as he swam further down, but there were bodies floating around him and each one had a wound that the Winter Soldier had dealt. Stab wound to the heart, gunshot to the stomach six times, organs fried from electricity, and a throat crushed from metal on flesh.  
He didn’t want these memories, he wanted the ones of skinny-Steve smiling up at him like he was the goddamn sun. He wanted the memories of curling up under threadbare blankets in winter and waking up the Steve slipping into the bed next to him.  
 He didn’t want blind, dead innocent people with mouths frozen in a scream to float by him as he swam down down down to grab Steve.  
The metal arm shot forward, the nimble fingers locking on the Captain’s suit and hauling him closer before his legs started automatically kicking toward the surface. Steve’s weight didn’t even register in the Soldier’s mind, he just kept his eyes on the bright surface above and tried to ignore the ghosts grasping for his ankles.  
He had a mission now.

Save Steve Rogers.

 It seemed like an eternity as Bucky stumbled to shore, dragging Steve behind him as his feet found purchase on the sand. Everything was hurting now, and a dull throbbing was growing from behind his eyes.  
 It was just a few more steps, that’s what Bucky assured himself, the Soldier’s been through worse and he could handle this. Steve’s body was gently lowered onto the wet ground, and Bucky stumbled away gripping his head.  
The memories weren’t as violent now, but it was like boiling water was being poured over his skin. Tingles ran up and down his nerves, the metal arm twitching slightly at his side.  
Even after the memories nearly stopped, only a few of the war trickling in, the ache in his body persisted. He was tired, exhausted and every bone in his body felt like it was being slowly chipped away at. The Soldier, unable to shake the pain, heaved himself up a fire escape and settled on the still sun-warmed roof of an old building. Bundled up in a corner, and still shaking from all the images that had returned, it seemed a viable enough place to try and recover.  
Or at least, that was the plan.  
Bucky only managed to stay awake for half an hour, mumbling weak apologies to the people he’d maimed and harmed, before his eyes slid shut. It was a testament to how tired he was that Bucky’s didn’t wake when strong arms curled around his body.  
The soldier only nuzzled closer to the warmth as cold air slid down the length of his body, and didn’t fight the nothingness that had taken over his ruined mind.

It didn’t take long for the left-behind H.Y.D.R.A agents to come out of the woodwork, and when they did it was with a vengeance. They slaughtered and killed, but they were unorganized and had no structure.  
The still functioning government programs tried to pry information from agents, switching between locking them away or interrogating them until the sun had set and rose. It was a complete fluke that Steve Rogers had been sitting behind the one way glass as a man in a suit asked the H.Y.D.R.A agent questions. He’d brought this one in, and just hadn’t left yet.  
When the man hissed the Winter Soldier’s name, all intentions of leaving left Steve’s body.  
 “We’re not looking for the Soldier anymore,” the H.Y.D.R.A man laughed, flecks of blood on his bottom lip disappearing under a flick of his tongue, “just looking for the body now.” The interrogator didn’t seem to care, his stance just as stiff and eyes just as cold.  
“Are you implying that the H.Y.D.R.A project, codename Winter Soldier, has been killed?”  
The H.Y.D.R.A man rolled his eyes, “Well, we weren’t going to let an asset like that fall into your hands, not functional.”  
“How did the Winter Soldier die, then?” The interrogator asked, and the agent seemed to ponder what was worth telling.  
“My comrades and I,” the H.Y.D.R.A agent explained, and Steve’s mind flashed back to the men he’d found the agent with, a mix of genders that had gone down all the same, “were tracking down the body, have been for nearly a week. That arm, we made sure that it gave us control. A kill switch, very helpful as you can imagine. There’s enough poison in that arm to take down an elephant. It’s been slowly bleeding into him since the asset went rouge. The Soldier’s dead by now, probably just curled up somewhere and didn’t wake up—”  
The man’s gleeful chatter was cut short by Steve’s fist nearly breaking the glass barrier, and though the interrogator and agent couldn’t hear, and being dragged away.

Bucky woke up to the feeling of warmth and softness, the bed under him old but still springy. Quickly, the soldier tried to take in all his surroundings. The walls were bland, some odd hue of yellow, and there was only one door.  
Just as Bucky managed to haul himself up into a crouching position, there was a knock on the door.  
“Can I come in, or are you going to try and stab me with something?” The light voice huffed, but Bucky registered it as distinctly male.  
When Bucky didn’t answer, the man tried again. “Look, I’m not going to hurt you. I found you passed out, and I brought you here. I’ve got food, but I’m not coming in until you verbally assure me you’re not going to strangle me or something like that. I don’t feel like dying today, to be perfectly honest.” The man snapped.  
“Come in slowly,” Bucky growled clearly, “don’t try anything.”  
The door opened, and a man stepped in with a tray of food balanced on one hand and the other slowly rising from where it had twisted the doorknob. He held the Soldier’s gaze, walking to the bed and setting the tray down. Bucky eyed the food carefully, and the other man huffed and grabbed a piece of bacon and shoved it in his mouth.  
“Name’s Riley,” The man mumbled between bites, and Bucky reached out a shaky hand to grab what looked like fruit. “And before you try and attack me or something, yes, there is metal behind me. It’s attacked to bones, though, so no, I can’t take it off.”  
Bucky sat a little straighter, yelling internally for relaxing so quickly. It was true, the man’s words. Slivers of metal were visible from behind his body, curled so tight that you could barely tell. The metal shifted, expanding outward a bit, to reveal what seemed to look like metal wings. The looked like the man’s from the battle, the Falcon, but the tech was more so Russian.  
“You were part of the Red Room.” Bucky hissed, and the bird-man gave him a blank stare.  
“So were you, so don’t go snapping at me.” Riley snapped, “Besides, you’re lucky to be alive. Do you even know what they did to that arm of yours?”  
Bucky shook his head, snatching a piece of toast from the tray.  
“Same thing they did with my wings, made sure that we wouldn’t be able to turn against them. It’s some sort of poison, there’s connectors where the metal meets flesh,” Riley pointed at Bucky’s hidden shoulder, “so that it goes into your bloodstream. I found you passed out on a rooftop, and you were already almost gone. I gave you the antidote, but I thought it was too late. You’ve been out for nearly a week.”  
Eyes wide and confused, Bucky could only stare. “Did they take your memories away, too?”  
Riley’s face softened, and he nodded, “I’m guessing you got yours back recently, just before you passed out on the roof?”  
Bucky nodded, “All the people I’ve killed—”  
With a movement fluid yet slow enough to give Bucky time to pull away, Riley placed a hand on the shoulder. The metal one.  
“Those bastards, they’re the ones that killed all those people. They tore you apart for that purpose, to be a machine and kill. They did it to me too, okay? I understand, but they’re gone now. The only H.Y.D.R.A people left are the lackeys, the footmen who have no orders to follow. You’re free now, it’s always going to haunt you but you learn to live with it.” Riley smiled, and Bucky looked away.  
“He’s going to hate me, for all the things I did,” Bucky mumbled, weakly lifting up his metal arm.  
Riley grabbed the hand, his metal wings stretching out from their place curled up against his back. They nearly spanned from wall to wall, just a few inches shy of touching, and Bucky took in the curving lines of mock-feathers.  
“Captain America?” Riley asked, not stopping Bucky as his flesh hand traced the lines of the wings, but waited for an answer. Bucky nodded.  
“No, a man like that, he’s going to be there for you, forever.” Riley assured him, clasping a hand over the red star, “The other man, the man with the wings you fought, that was my wingmate. We fought together during the war. He was my partner, the same way Steve is yours.”  
“Does he know you’re alive?” Bucky asked, dropping his hand away.  
Riley shook his head, grimacing, “I’m still recovering too, like you. I want to get as close to normal as I can before I see him, because I think the pain of seeing me fucked up in the head is worse than still believing I’m dead.”  
Nodding, Bucky carefully looked into the man’s eyes. “We have to protect them.”  
Smiling, Riley let his hand leave Bucky’s arm, and added, “But first, we’ve got to try and fix ourselves.”  
Bucky didn’t argue.

The whole process apparently started with a hot shower, as Riley insisted. The make-do safe house had only one small bathroom, and the winged man herded the Soldier into it as soon as he could stand.  
The memories of bathing before sunrise, so he could get to work, seeped through his pores like the water. H.Y.D.R.A never cared about the Soldier’s appearance, only taking care of him when a hit required it. There had never been hot water, never in Bucky’s life.  
Bucky wasn’t going to complain about the weak water pressure or the tightness of the space, he just scrubbed the grime off his body and basked in the warmth.  
God, he’d never been so warm.  
Riley picked up immediately on Bucky’s attitude, and threw a heavy blanket at him. Bucky looked confused, dressed in Riley’s extra clothes and holding the fluffy blanket.  
Riley only explained by telling him that, “no one should have to be that cold for that long.” Then he ushered the Sargent over to the couch, and told him to sit.  
Bucky melted into the warmth of the blanket, and Riley settled down on the other side of the couch.  
They sat there, swapping stories and horrific memories, until the sun went down. Even when the room was just lit by a weak lamp, they stayed up. Riley didn’t debate, just grabbed another blanket and two pillows before hauling them back over to the couch and curling up so that they could both lay on the couch and still whispered things that would have broken any other man’s soul.  
“I used to do this with Steve,” Bucky mumbled as one o’ clock rolled around, “We’d put the cushions on the floor and make a fort. There wasn’t heating back then, not like today. It kept us warm.”  
Riley hummed an answer, and chuckled a story back. “I used to cuddle with Sam, and we’d watch movies for hours and never move. I bet you and Steve would love to do that, you two have missed so many great movies. I miss those nights. It was a time like that when Sam told me he loved me.”  
The room was silent for a few minutes, but then Bucky’s rough voice drifted to Riley’s ears. “I miss them.”  
“We’ll see them soon.”

For Riley and Bucky, soon came in the form of two weeks. By now they’d cried out every tear left, sheading the guilt to where it didn’t make their chests cave in when the nights were too silent. Everything still hurt, but it was bearable.  
The nightmares hadn’t gone away, but they found a way to keep them at bay for a good bit. Curled together, like the closest of brothers, they could count each other’s breaths and when one woke up whimpering or screaming they could tell tales that no one else would ever understand.  
They trained and sparred like two homing missiles, so attuned to each other’s moves that they’d get lost in the rhythm for hours.  
Wings and arm would crash together without holding anything back, and it was something they both needed. They came out bleeding and bruised, and would spend hours on the small couch surrounded in a nest of pillows and blankets as their sweat cooled.  
Nimble hands fixed fried wires and stuck servos, and Bucky learned Riley’s wings like Riley learned Bucky’s arm.  
Riley taught Bucky to world, how to cook and blend in and the basics that H.Y.D.R.A had taken away, and Bucky taught Riley how to shoot so the targets didn’t die, and how to massage the kinks out of muscles around his wings.  
By the time nearly all their stories had been traded, the news of the metal man rushed through the States. Ultron, the government and media alike said, was the biggest threat now. The type of threat the Avengers were made for.  
It only took one look for both Riley and Bucky to know that the other was ready to fight.

Two days after the news broke, the two men left the safe house without looking back.  
They had a mission now.

Bucky’s sniper rifle sights settled on Ultron’s neck, where he could see a few wires and tubes.  
“Riley,” Bucky hissed into the radio, “I’ve got a shot.”  
There was static, but then Riley’s familiar voice panted back into existence. “I’ve got the RPG, heading toward your position now. Take the shot.”  
Bucky didn’t question the order, chambering a bullet and steadying his aim. The bullet flew true, ripping open what seemed to be an oil tube and taking a few wires with it. The metal man was getting closer in the sights, and Bucky swore as he took off running with the enemy on his coattails.  
“Shot confirmed, took out some wiring, I’ve been spotted.”  
Riley responded quickly, “Can you get to the ground? I’m nearly there, and I can see you, but I don’t have a clear shot.”  
Without hesitation, Bucky flung himself down, hitting the ground with the metal arm and curling into the pain.  
 _“WHAT THE FUCK, BARNES?”_ Riley howled from his side of the radio, but it only took a second for Bucky to recover from the jump.  
“I’m fine, I’m fine!” Bucky huffed back into the radio, catching a glimpse of Iron Man’s suit. Riley didn’t answer, except for a huff of agitation.  
Two spanning metal lines casted a shadow over Bucky, and he didn’t have to look up to know Riley, and his legs acted on instinct. He dove away, curling as tight as he could as the RPG smashed into its mark and flames licked at the ground. A heavy weight settled over Bucky, and the memorized feel of the wings covering them both grounded him.  
The shockwaves, nearly completely stopped by Riley’s wings, died in the air a few moments after the shot.  
It didn’t mean that they could just get up and walk away, though. Both their legs felt like jell-o, and they had to lean on each other just to stand up.  
Riley turned Bucky, eyes questioning _are you ready to see him_ , and Bucky lifted his flesh had to wipe away a smear of blood over his partner’s eye. Riley returned the gesture by plucking pieces of metal from Bucky’s suit.  
It didn’t take long for the footsteps to arrive.  
Steve stumbled to a halt, and Sam’s feet touched the ground just behind the Captain. The rest of the Avengers were arriving, but the two H.Y.D.R.A-free men didn’t care about them.  
Riley stumbled forward, a huge smile on his face, dragging Bucky with him or else they’d both fall. His wings were curled tight against his back, just like when Bucky had first met him, but there was no hiding Bucky’s arm.  
Sam didn’t mention it, or stumble away confused, he just rushed forward and all but grabbed Riley from Bucky’s grasp. Suddenly, the sniper was off balance but Steve’s hands clutching his hips steadied him perfectly. The grasp was desperate, and Steve’s hands were checking everywhere for signs of injury or distress.  
The street was a mix of reverent whispers of Bucky and Riley’s names, and hushed mutters of Steve and Sam’s.

That night, the Avengers gained two new members, but the tower lost no rooms.

Two weeks after the ‘reunion’ (as Tony so lovingly called it), Steve and Sam found their respective partners curled together on the couch with an old Disney movie playing on the TV. Bucky, a light sleeper from years of training, pulled Riley’s body on top of his so that Steve and Sam could slide onto the couch.  
With strong hands, Bucky handed Riley over to Sam and crawled on top of Steve so that everyone could fit. Riley woke a few minutes later, pecking Sam on the lips before standing on shaky legs and promising that he was just grabbing something.  
He came back with the two softest, fluffiest blankets he could find and tucked one around Steve and Bucky before curling back on Sam’s lap and wrapping the other one around themselves.  
They slept in passed noon.


End file.
